England World Cup - Football History - 1960's

The 1960's brought some great stars to football. George Best, Pele, Bobby Charlton, Bobby Moore.

30th July 1966 - England won The World Cup and Bobby Moore's team were consigned to history, in front of 98,000 people at Wembley. It was a real nail-biting finish, with the score 2-2 at the 90 minute mark. Extra time brought a further two goals from Geoff Hurst. For the first and only time since the competition began in 1930, an English player held the Jules Rimet trophy over his head, presented by Queen Elizabeth ll. Geoff Hurst is still today, the highest scoring player in a World Cup Final (he scored 3 of the 4 goals).

Another hero of the World Cup was a dog named Pickles. The Jules Rimet trophy had been stolen from an exhibition and FIFA had another made.Pickles sniffed out the original, wrapped in some newspaper under some bushes in London, in time for the presentation.

An historic part of the 1966 World Cup was BBC commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme's closing comment "Some people are on the pitch. They think it's all over...[Geoff Hurst scores]... it is now!".

Of course, as much as the endeavours of the England Team having something to do with the winning of the final, maybe World Cup Willie also had something to do with it?

World Cup Willie was a lion, dressed in a Union Flag, emblazoned with 'World Cup'; the first ever mascot of a World Cup and very symbolic of England.

Between 1965-68, Sir Stanley Matthews travelled the world, coaching amateur footballers. The most notable time was when he coached "Stan's Men", an all-black team in Soweto. This was in spite of the apartheid laws in South Africa at the time. In 2002, Sir Stanley Matthews was the first recorded player in the English Football Hall of Fame. To read the list of subsequent records, is to take a stroll through the History of Football itself.

But sadly, the 1966 Chester Report found that violent incidents doubled in the first five years of the decade, in comparison to the previous 25 years. The inquiry into the state of football in the UK was very disturbing, citing the levels of violence both before and after games.

Tottenham Hotspur won The FA Cup three times in the 1960's and 'did the double', winning the League in 1961.